AgResearch a winner as Government commits further $154m to research and development

Wednesday, 3 June 2020

Extra funding for r&d will help provide well-paid jobs during Covid recovery, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods says.

The Government has tipped about another $154 million into research and development spending, just three weeks after a $247m boost in the Budget.

A spokesman for Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said the new funding announced on Wednesday included an additional $117 million for Crown Research Institutes (CRIs).

That is on top of the $79m granted to them over four years in the Budget.

AgResearch appears one of the big winners.

A statement released by Woods said it would receive money from the Covid Response and Recovery Fund to develop a 'fit-for-future scientific research facility and corporate headquarters' at Lincoln University.

AgResearch and Lincoln University had once hoped to build a $206m joint facility.

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'The facility will encourage more collaboration in food and fibres research and innovation, to help farmers and growers manage challenges, and seize opportunities for getting more economic value out of products,' it said.

A spokesman for Woods said the funding would be for AgResearch to redevelop its existing campus at the university.

Lincoln University and AgResearch had originally intended to build a $206m joint facility by last December, which they were billing as the largest agricultural research centre in the southern hemisphere.

Waikato University professor Troy Baisden, president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, said 'repeated business-case rethinks of the AgResearch building on the Lincoln University campus' had left a 'shovel-ready' crater that deserved to progress.

'Some researchers may question whether the support for institutions with fragile finances is fair, but few can argue that our agriculture and health research institutions shouldn’t have adequate modern accommodation,' he said.

Woods also announced on Wednesday that funding for a Budget initiative to promote Māori research and development opportunities had been increased from $6.5m to $33m.

Baisden said funds previously designated specifically for Māori-led research were insufficient to fund full-time doctorates or early career researchers 'so this could provide a transformational opportunity'.

Government grants agency Callaghan Innovation will get another $10m, in part to ensure it can provide more help to early-stage research-intensive companies that are disproportionally affected by Covid-19.

All the fresh funding is being provided through the Government's Covid Response and Recovery Fund and – along with the previously announced Budget funding – will take the total new investment in research and development to $401m.

The flagship research scheme in the Budget was a $150m package of short-term loans that will be designed to encourage companies to press ahead with research and development projects that they might otherwise have cut because of the pandemic.

Those loans will be available from June and managed by Callaghan Innovation.

The loans will subsidise up to half of businesses' qualifying research and development expenditure, up to a cap of $100,000 per firm.

Woods said the extra government funding would help provide well-paid and secure jobs and would improve productivity, 'all of which will be vital as we look towards economic recovery in the aftermath of Covid'.